Tag Archives: September 11th

Nope, not watching television today… every time i hear “nine-eleven” my heart winces… it’s starting to become a semi-regular day… you know, “i can start seeing your child next monday, september 11th” or “let’s have a lunch meeting – say, september 11th?” or “oh, let’s do dinner next week… the week of september 11th”… “Classes start on September 11th”… or “i’ll be back in the office on monday, september 11th…” etc.

my president’s response, and the fallout from that single event, has made my country a minority… not sure who our allies are at the moment… and he hasn’t considered how his actions reflect on our nation… he certainly doesn’t represent all of my countrymen… probably less than half (so many people didn’t vote, and two elections ago it was almost a tie – remember that?)… I’ve been thinking about the next election, and can’t wait to get a Democrat in office… simply because that would shift balance of power… the only thing is – I want there to be a Democrat I can vote for with good conscious. The country did change after 9/11, and it’s not simply the change in security procedures in the airports. Things are different. People are different. We’ve had to create a new normal.

My younger brother was in college in Manhattan, NY (same island as Ground Zero)… he was in class when the first plane hit… during a class change he saw the smoke… all students were “encouraged” to stay on campus until the situation in NY was assessed… he said that, among other things, his heart sank when he looked out the window and the towers were gone. He’s an Eagle Scout… not sure how to explain that – graduated Boy Scout – and he tried to go towards Ground Zero to help people in need… he finally go to a place where there were barriers, and was turned away, so… he walked… and walked… and walked… with everyone else…out of the city…

there was no communication for a long time with people from the island – don’t recall exact reason at this time.. oh, now I remember – the phones were jammed, the volume of calls was so high, nothing was going through. traffic jam of sorts. I’m sure there was government involvement in that, too… to secure the area or something. Phones and electricity…

my grandmother was still alive at that time… i called, spoke to her nurse and asked if she was aware of what was going on… Yes. i spoke to my grandmother, and said i would call as soon as i knew Matt was ok. she was terribly worried… called my brother in Hawaii (island in Pacific ocean, about 5-6 time zones away) and he hadn’t heard yet. he worked at the US Naval Base, and was told not to come into work that morning, but didn’t know why… when I told him about the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, he stopped, his blood stopped – Matthew. We were all thinking about Matthew… the ‘not knowing’ was so difficult. Called my sister, and my mom… no one had heard anything…

…the not knowing… the not knowing…

a while later he (Matt) replied to an email i sent right after the attacks… he was ok. it was very chaotic in the city… he was going to try to “do something” to help… he promised he’d stay safe… I told him I loved him…(apologized for ever being a bad sister)… and we said goodbye.

all across the nation, people lined up at Red Cross blood banks to donate their blood… it was the least we could do – it was the only thing we could do… the lines were miles long… in NY city, there were emergency hospitals set up to treat survivors – doctors and nurses were anxiously waiting to treat survivors…

there were none. there was no one to give the blood to. no one to treat. so many people died in those towers.

…after the 2nd tower collapsed, several emergency workers were rescued – they were in an air pocket…

i was working in school that day… we listened to the radio, played with the kids, but no official learning took place that day… by the time i got home, about 6 hours after the first plane hit, i changed into my pajamas… and watched the news… saw my first images of what happened in New York on 9/11… i was devastated. it was devastating… so sad, so terribly sad…

it was rattling, too… this was the first time that an act of foreign terrorism of that magnitude, directed at the USA, occurred on our soil… i’m fairly philosophical about things over which i have no control… i will share that 9/11 has given me greater empathy for terror/wars in foreign lands…I’m more aware of the world and what goes on inside it… the events of 9/11 have also shown me that i can put on blinders, and ignore what’s going on in the world, if that’s something i choose to do… i often go to the BBC News to get a more accurate world view of what’s going on in other regions of our little, semi-green Earth…

there’s more to write, but I just wanted to explain the title… No television today. It’s already still so vivid in my mind’s eye.